Palestinian girl laid to rest in her hometown days after being shot by Israeli forces

June 3, 2017 6:19 P.M. (Updated: June 5, 2017 7:44 P.M.)

JENIN (Ma'an) -- Two days after Israeli forces fatally shot 16-year-old Nuf Uqab Abd al-Jabar Infiaat, the girl was laid to rest Saturday in her hometown of Yaabad, southwest of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank.

Footage was released depicting Israeli settlers insulting the young Palestinian as she lay wounded on the ground, calling her a "b*tch" and telling her she deserved to die -- recalling a similar incident in 2015 when a video showed an Israeli man yelling "Die, son of a b*tch!" at a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who had just been shot and critically injured.

Hundreds of mourners crowded outside the Infiaat's home, as relatives and friends bid her a final farewell. Mourners then carried the body to the town's main mosque for a funeral prayer, before marching to the town's cemetery where she was buried.

Yaabad Mayor Samir Abu Bakr delivered a funeral oration at the cemetery, in which he said he held the Israeli occupation responsible for the sufferings of the Palestinian people.

Infiaat was the 27th Palestinian to have been killed by Israelis since the beginning of 2017, ten of whom were minors and four were women and girls. In the same time period, seven Israelis have been killed by Palestinians.

Activists, and rights groups have denounced what they have termed a "shoot-to-kill" policy against Palestinians who did not constitute a threat at the time of their death, or who could have been subdued in a non-lethal manner -- amid a backdrop of impunity for Israelis who committed the killings.

According to statistics published by the Palestinian Ministry of Information on the occasion of the International Day for Protection of Children on Thursday, Israeli forces killed 3,000 Palestinian minors between 2000, when the Second Intifada began, and April 2017.

During the same time period, the ministry estimated that another 13,000 children were injured by Israeli forces.